HELL IN THE HEARTLAND BY JAX MILLER

While this case is frustrating in a sense that the answers we seek were never completely given, it’s a fascinating and well written true crime account of the Freeman/Bible case from 1999.

​Rating: ★★★★★
​Release Date: July 28, 2020
Genre: True Crime. 
Series: None. 
Pages: 335 pages
Format: Paperback. Source: ​Purchased.

S-Town meets I'll Be Gone in the Dark in this stranger-than-fiction cold case from rural Oklahoma that has stumped authorities for two decades, concerning the disappearance of two teenage girls and the much larger mystery of murder, possible police cover-up, and an unimaginable truth...

On December 30, 1999, in rural Oklahoma, sixteen-year-old Ashley Freeman and her best friend, Lauria Bible, were having a sleepover. The next morning, the Freeman family trailer was in flames and both girls were missing.

While rumors of drug debts, revenge, and police corruption abounded in the years that followed, the case remained unsolved and the girls were never found.

In 2015, crime writer Jax Miller--who had been haunted by the case--decided to travel to Oklahoma to find out what really 

​happened on that winter night in 1999, and why the story was still simmering more than fifteen years later. What she found was more than she could have ever bargained for: evidence of jaw-dropping levels of police negligence, entire communities ravaged by methamphetamine addiction, and a series of interconnected murders with an ominously familiar pattern.

These forgotten towns were wild, lawless, and home to some very dark secrets.

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𝗥𝗘𝗩𝗜𝗘𝗪 𝗦𝗡𝗔𝗣𝗦𝗛𝗢𝗧: While this case is frustrating in a sense that the answers we seek were never completely given, it’s a fascinating and well written true crime account of the Freeman/Bible case from 1999.

I bought this book on a whim because I wanted to read a true crime book (and not one that was already sitting on my shelves 🙈). I read it immediately after buying it too which is something I rarely do and then I subscribed to HBO MAX so I could watch the documentary based on this case. All in all, I am so glad I did.

This is a fascinating yet heartbreaking true crime novel about the Freeman/Bible case that happened in Oklahoma in 1999. Two parents were shot and killed; their house then lit on fire. The two girls (daughter and best friend) missing. There whereabouts? Still unknown to this day. This story looks at this case in precise detail and gives readers insight into small town police corruption, drug addiction, and murders. While the story is frustrating BECAUSE of these things, the book is extremely well written and fascinating because it’s a wonder how something like this could have happened. I’m almost speechless just thinking about it because it boggles my mind how two sets of police forces could loose important documents pertaining to this case. They also never followed up on leads that could have led them to the killer/s BEFORE these girls were murdered, they never even SEARCHED for them. It’s extremely diabolical and I can’t believe these sheriff’s officers weren’t sued because of their extreme mishandling of the case. I had to take a break from reading because of how much anxiety this corruption was giving me. Other than this, readers can gain good backstory to the town, the people within it, and how drugs fueled violence in this small-town America. For the authors first foray into true crime, I think she did an impeccable job with this one. I look forward to reading more if she chooses to write.